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and uncertainties of northern seas ; for there the monsoons 
blow with steadiness and regularity from autumn to spring 
from India to Africa, and from spring to autumn from 
Africa towards India. Thus wafted to its shores, there 
would be no difficulty in sailing along the pepper-vielding 
coast of Malabar, or to the cinnamon-producing Ceylon, 
which we know was the centre of an extensive commerce 
in later times. Even so early as the commencement of 
the Christian era, Pliny relates that an embassy was sent 
to the Emperor Claudius, who stated that the Cingalese 
traded as far as Serica ; the Greeks had obtained very 
accurate accounts respecting this island in the time of the 
Seleucidas; and extensive ruins of Hindoo-built temples 
remain in Java to attest its former connexion with India. 
This active and extensive communication, both by land 
and sea in ancient times, indicates a great demand for the 
products of the country, which seems always to have 
been its ultimate object. Eut these were not to be 
obtained, without bringing materials for exchange, or gold 
and silver for purchase: since these valuable metals, though 
not wanting, were probably, at all times, more deficient 
than other substances, within the limits of the Indian terri- 
tory. Thus the caravans obtained, in exchange for the 
products of India, those which were peculiar to the coun- 
tries they visited; and which were of value, if not in India, 
at least in some part of the widely-spread regions, through 
which they passed. Thus, in Bactria and the Northern 
India of Herodotus and Ctesias, the modern Tartary and 
Tibet, they obtained gold and gold dust, probably also 
copper, lead, cinnabar, and tincal ; still found in those 
regions. Furs may have been obtained from Siberia. 
Cattle appear to have been as numerous, and their wool as 
valuable, in ancient as in modern times. The woollen 
cloths, mentioned as so highly esteemed, were probably 
shawls from the wool of the Tibetan goat. The climate, 
